The Tragic Presidency

Like a badly damaged second hand tape, the Jonathan presidency is unraveling before our very eyes, reeling its way into a tangled mass of confusion. It is not a funny sight, more so since Goodluck Jonathan started out with an outpouring of genuine national good will. All that has disappeared now, leaving in its wake angry nationals and affronted citizens. Increasingly, Jonathan himself is looking like a tragic figure but without the elemental force of personality, the grand passions and the towering pathos of those titans of historical tragedy.

Of late, he has been showing some irritability and testy distemper which sit oddly with the carefully cultivated and calibrated image of a man of Olympian equanimity and profound self-possession. Manipulated by his own manipulations and by the mannequins of power and state marionettes surrounding him, he is beginning to imagine himself as a victim of some apocalyptic conspiracy on a national and international scale.

The past fortnight must have been a nightmare. History moves like a cattle rustler: silently, secretively and with much stealth. Six weeks ago, no one could have imagined Chibok and the Bring Back our Girls Campaign. But now they are with us, and the venom and international outpouring of grief have exposed the septic underbelly of the Jonathan presidency. It is unlikely to survive the opprobrium. When all is quiet, it shall be said that at a time of grave national emergency, Jonathan dithered and dissimulated when he ought to have acted with swift expediency and compassion for the victims.

But let no one rejoice. This is a collective tragedy. It is a collective tragedy because Jonathan is a product of our collective imagination. In rooting for him, we plumbed for youth and national idealism at the expense of experience and granite integrity. It was a defining moment in our national history. For once, most Nigerians spoke with one voice, which was that there must be no ethnic bar or barrier preventing any Nigerian from aspiring to the highest office in the land. The Nigerian presidency is not the perpetual birthright of any religious cabal or ethnic conclave however self-regarding or self-perpetuating.

Yet as Shakespeare famously noted, youth is a stuff that will not endure. Neither is national idealism particularly when not leavened by pragmatic expediency. Jonathan may well be a mess. But he is not just his own mess. He is our mess. We must bear this in mind as we contemplate the tragic mess of the Jonathan presidency. Going forward, we must focus on the ball and not be distracted by attractive but meretricious ephemerality. This is the only way to learn the correct lesson from the tragedy unfolding.

Jonathan’s die-hard apologists are wont to see an ethnic conspiracy in even the most innocuous of criticisms. But they have forgotten that the Jonathan presidency is itself a product of a grand pan-ethnic conspiracy. They often point out that some people had vowed to make Nigeria ungovernable if a “foreigner” should come to power. But no one can be forced to stumble unless such a person is already predisposed to wobbling. In any case, it is a reflection of Jonathan’s miserable gifts as a leader of a complex multi-ethnic nation if he is unable to hold together the pan-ethnic alliance that propel him to power in the first instance. People make history but never under the circumstances of their choice.

But as usual, we may be looking for the wrong lesson in the right place. The presidency of any nation is a perpetual work in progress. A particular president needs not be a great person or a great president. It is in the nature of human folly and modern anxiety that we expect too much from a president without factoring into the equation the circumstances of presidential progeny. If only when the time comes, and very soon, too, Jonathan will bid goodbye to the presidency with the same courtesy, civility and decorum with which he acceded in the first instance, history will give him a grudging applause. This is a glorious legacy that will survive the current appalling mess.

But if he were to plunge a country that he owes so much into a terminal civil war in a futile bid to hold on to power, he stands the chance of entering the history books as the worst ruler in Nigeria’s blighted history. Even a poor ruler must have a sense of an ending, or he may invite a terrible tragedy on himself and his nation. That end appears to be in sight for the tragic presidency of Dr Goodluck Jonathan.

This morning, in order to arrive at a correct perspective of what is going on, we publish excerpts from two old pieces which welcomed Jonathan’s ascendancy but which also foreshadowed its tragic trajectory. The one hailed his surefootedness in negotiating the political landmines while the other compared him with President Gerald Ford. Perhaps it will help Jonathan’s most rabid propagandists to regain their balance and sense of perspective.

And you think post-Jonathan presidency will fare any better for our country? Biased minds like you and those power- must- return to the north crusaders thinks that with your schemes and distractions that when and if you succeed in ousting Jonathan and installing your ‘upright and incorruptible’ General, Nigeria would be a better place? Whoever that go to equity must go with clean hands. Whoever it is from the north you think is better should gear up for confrontation and distraction from the Niger Delta, because surely the boys will go back to the creek and Nigeria economy will surely be crippled. The north deliberately engage in every form of distraction just to make Jonathan government look bad, forgetting that his own people will never fold their arms when a northern ascend presidency. What goes around they say comes around. Who suffers? Nigeria!!!!

From day one,i knew and was not convinced that Ebele Azikwe Jonathan despite his claimed-PHD-from University of Port Harcourt did not possess the leadership stature,human-capacity competency,capability and experience to lead Nigeria to a successful presidential term.
I knew he lacks the necessary leadership quality to achieve anything tangible
in security of life and property of Nigerians,or attain regular power supply which is the ultimate back-bone of any developing economy with modern good roads,train and focus construction projects in order to provide employment for millions of our graduates to develop our decaying vital infrastructures.

Talking about pan-Nigerian vote for Jonathan? When did that one start? When did the concept of “pan-Nigeria” emerge in Nigerian lexicon in the first place? You know very well in your heart that there is nothing like pan-Nigerianism in Nigeria. And, how much of your contribution made Jonathan the president? Obasanjo imposed him and Yar’Adua and both of them emerged without anybody doing otherwise. Till tomorrow presidents will be emerging in Nigeria by imposition of incumbents. And there was no way any other person could have become president after the death of Yar’Adua no matter the politics or sentiments. And meanwhile, you are convinced that the only time there will not be civil war is when the power is handed back to the north and the their collaborator Southwest? Now, let me tell you local imperialist: the armaggedon can even start, who cares? Who in the first place wants Nigeria? My fathers and mothers rejected it since 1967 and were only forced back, and for me that country they were killed for remains the only country I can think of. So, you can very well wake Awolowo from his grave and inform him that another starvation time has come!

Lets control our emotions in calling for a situation that will be disastrous to all.Clarification on one point,nobody chased anybody away before,neither did anyone force anyone back.They were collective decisions of those that practicalized it.

Before June 12 1993 Yorubas never saw anything wrong with the Nigerian federation or the Nigerian politics; all was well. So, June 12 happened to mark the beginning of, and in fact the only evil to occur in Nigeria. Then, since their allies, the north moved to compensate with eight years of the presidency it has been back to the status quo ante. And it is clear that sensing that Yoruba presidency is at least distant for now, the next best available alternative is to que behind the north and declare the power equation to emerge from it it to be the only option for peace.